


A Long Enough Timeline

by OneHandedBooks



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Gen, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, it's still beautiful, last one out turn off the lights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 18:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7694593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHandedBooks/pseuds/OneHandedBooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal and Will lie on the coarse pebble beach at the base of the Dragon's cliff. Hannibal coughs out a flood of seawater, gasping and heaving like a fish in a creel. He stretches out his arm and inches his hand along the coarse grasping rocks to curve his cold pale fingertips around Will's. He closes his eyes. When he opens them, he is at the top of the cliff again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long Enough Timeline

**Author's Note:**

> Hannibal Cre-ATE-ive: Make something set post-TWOTL to celebrate the one year anniversary of the finale!  
> Me: Awesome! Ok guys, how about a Disney fairytale ending?!  
> Hannibal & Will: How about a Grimm’s fairytale ending tho?  
> Me: … Goddamn it.

Hannibal and Will lie on the coarse pebble beach at the base of the Dragon's cliff. Hannibal coughs out a flood of seawater, gasping and heaving like a fish in a creel.

He remembers hooking his arm around Will’s neck and pulling Will ashore with him. He fights for another unsatisfying breath and turns his head gingerly to the side. Yes. There he is. The churning sea has washed the blood from Will’s ruined cheek and his damaged shoulder. He is pale and silent, but Hannibal can see through his slitted eyes that Will’s chest still rises and falls.

It is right that Will should live with what he's done, Hannibal thinks. That Will should live with what he is. That Will should live.

The gunshot wound in Hannibal's side is trickling sluggishly, his abdomen swelling hard and purple as he bleeds out into his belly. He is distantly aware of a strange tightness around his middle, like an overwound belt, but he can't seem to concentrate on it. He is tired. He is so achingly tired and the world has begun to blur at the edges. If he could sleep, just for a moment, then maybe he could jar it back into focus with his waking, like striking a stuck watch against a stone.

He stretches out his arm and inches his hand along the coarse grasping rocks to curve his cold pale fingertips around Will's. He closes his eyes. When he opens them, he is at the top of the cliff again.

He looks around and sees Will staring across the courtyard at him like a warrior, feralbent and wild. His savage mouth running red. Hannibal leaps on the Dragon’s back and yanks his head back to tear out his throat as Will rushes forward and plunges his blade into the Dragon’s underbelly. They are devastating mortal wounds and the Dragon drops prostrate between them, his crimson wings flowing across the cobbled paving stones.

Hannibal staggers back towards the edge of the cliff and Will reaches for him. Finally. Finally.

Will clutches Hannibal’s outstretched hand and stumbles to his feet, panting and blood-slicked. Hannibal fists a hand in Will’s torn shirt to steady him. The bruised backs of his fingers curving against Will’s belly, pressed to the cataclysmic scar beneath the fabric. _His_ scar.

See?” Hannibal breathes. “This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.”

Will meets his eyes. “It’s beautiful.”

Hannibal nods, elated. His pain is so far away. Will wraps his arms around Hannibal and Hannibal pulls him closer, sighing. He tilts his chin so that Will can rest his cheek against his chest. He is drowning in joy and triumph.

Will holds him tight and takes them over the cliff. Hannibal turns them feet down. The buffeting air is warm and soft. Instead of the mortal screeching of the wind, his ears fill with the soft susurrus of Will’s breath. They enter the sea pointed perfectly, like Olympic divers, and surface beside Chiyoh's improbably ostentatious boat. She hauls them onboard and grudgingly treats their surprisingly minor injuries with laconic skill. They make a run for safety, a lovely long journey by sea to the pirate shoals of Argentina.

Hannibal and Will cook beef lomo saltado together in their glittering mountain house, hidden high on the steep slope of the Aconcagua. Will drives his wicked knife relentlessly through the ginger, peeling off paperthin slices under Hannibal’s prideful eye.

"Do you love me then?" Hannibal asks.

Will looks up at him. The reflection of the evening sun on the steel blade throws a veil of flaming light over his eyes. "You know I love you, Hannibal."

After dinner, Hannibal walks hand in hand with Will through an orange grove in the fertile valley below their home. It is beautiful. He can smell the sweet orange blossoms. The loamydark and sun-drenched earth. The heat of Will's skin. Wet stones, seaweed, blood. Hannibal flinches from the invasive odors and closes his eyes tightly. When he re-opens them, he is at the top of the cliff again.

He looks around and sees Will staring across the courtyard at him like a warrior, feralbent and wild. His savage mouth running red.

Hannibal’s eyes widen in charmed surprise and he smiles, delighted. Another chance, he thinks. A second chance. A third chance. All their victories still unbroken.

“How are you doing this?” he asks Will.

“You’re right,” Will says. He staggers to his feet, holding out a bloody wondering hand. “It really does look black in the moonlight.”

Before he can ask again, Hannibal hears himself telling Will that this is all he ever wanted for him, for them. Will responds that it’s beautiful. Hannibal holds Will to him and Will wraps an arm around his neck. Hannibal wants to say something else, to brush Will’s bloody curls back from his forehead, but he can’t seem to move.

Will holds him tight and takes them over the cliff again. Hannibal turns them feet down again. He can feel Will's heart, a spooked jackrabbit caught kicking in the cage of his ribs.

“I've got you,” he shouts over the howl of gravity's wind. “Hold on. Straighten your legs as much as you can and point your toes.”

He feels Will nod and stretch and embrace him tighter.

They pierce the water like sharpened steel, hardly a splash. Hannibal surfaces and drags Will from the frigid sea. Pours his air into Will’s lungs. Kisses life back into his body.

They haul themselves from the stony beach and walk up the back bay path to the safety of the cliff house, exorcised now of the Dragon’s influence. The basement is a white tiled hospital where Hannibal sews Will’s cheek and his shoulder back together. Will packs the wound in Hannibal’s torso, wrapping him in miles of gauze. Wounded and waning, they drive north towards New Brunswick and Hannibal’s sturdy opulent cabin hidden in the vast Canadian woods.

They find a sort of peace there. Books and dogs and wine and whiskey. Sleeping side by side in the sprawling master bed, touching lightly at fingertips and toes. A truce in love considered.

There is grey in Will’s hair and grey in Hannibal’s beard and grey in the long shadows of the deep winter. Will is gutting a deer and Hannibal is gutting the hunter. They are red to their elbows and the snow around them. There is a fire crackling. It is beautiful.

"Do you love me then?" Hannibal asks.

Will wrenches the deer's ribs apart with a terrible cracking sound and looks up at Hannibal. His fathomless blue eyes reflect the flames of the bonefire. "You know I love you, Hannibal."

Hannibal bows his head and closes his eyes, washed in warmth. When he re-opens them, he is at the top of the cliff again.

He looks around and sees Will staring across the courtyard at him like a warrior, feralbent and wild. His savage mouth running red.

“It really does look black in the moonlight,” Will says.

"No," Hannibal says, confused. "No."

He tries to change the script, but he cannot. He tries to tilt Will’s bloody chin up and kiss him as he'd wanted to before the fall but his body will not cooperate. Will wraps an arm around Hannibal’s neck, lays his head on his chest. Hannibal tries to push Will away so that Will cannot kill them both, but his treacherous arms only pull him closer.

Will holds him tight and takes them over the cliff again. Hannibal turns them feet down again. Will presses his bloody cheek to Hannibal’s and wraps him in a dark and rustling cloak. They float gently to the base of the cliff and land with the slightest bounce.

"How are you doing this?" Hannibal asks him, wide-eyed and childish. Will takes Hannibal’s small hand in his broad one. Shrugs and smiles with a mouth full of teeth.

They go to Budapest to hunt. Will is magnificent, regal, ruinous. His skin is milkwhite porcelain shot with tiny cracks radiating a rich gold light. He is sovereign of the underworld and young Hannibal is his  _dux bellorum_.

Of course they live in a palace. It is beautiful and severe and timeless. In their vast foyer, there is a single skull graven in the floor, a reminder of mortality. Will loves him and kisses him and takes him to a ball. He wears an oilslick cape of feathers and Hannibal wears a golden crown of antlers and the burning world cowers at their feet.

"Do you love me then?" Hannibal asks as Will holds him close, spinning them and spinning them and spinning them until the pinprick stars peering through the palace windows blur in neon streaks.

Will holds Hannibal’s gaze with eyes of flame. "You know I love you, Hannibal."

Hannibal throws his head back gratefully and lets Will sink his teeth into his red throat. His lips part around a deep sigh and he shuts his eyes.

When he opens them, he is at the top of the cliff again.

He looks around and sees Will staring across the courtyard at him like a warrior, feralbent and wild. His savage mouth running red.

“It really does look black in the moonlight,” Will says.

Hannibal shakes his head violently and begs the way Will taught him to- desperately and without hope. "No. Stop. Please, Will. Please. It’s enough now. This is enough. We can stay here. Stay with me.”

Will staggers to his feet and puts a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder to balance himself, squeezes affectionately. Hannibal shudders as Will slips implacable arms around him.

“This is all I ever wanted for you, Will,” Hannibal recites through clenched teeth. “For both of us.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Will holds him tight and takes them over the cliff. Hannibal tries to turn them feet down, but, in truth, there is not enough time.

They hit the water at terminal velocity. Hannibal angled and shielding Will's body, taking the brunt of the impact on his injured flank.  He feels the titanic ocean tearing Will from his arms and makes himself reach out over the shredding agony in his side to grab Will’s collar. He hooks an arm around Will’s throat and yanks him up onto the pebble beach and collapses onto his back. Hannibal coughs out a flood of seawater, gasping and heaving like a fish in a creel.

It is right that Will should live with what he's done, Hannibal thinks. That Will should live with what he is. That Will should live. 

He feels a vaguely annoying tightness in his belly. A persistent slewing  _wrongness_  in his legs. Something warm and wet that has been spreading under his back. He glances up at the dark and rippling sky. It is pricked with the bright burn of a hundred misspent constellations and it is still beautiful. 

Hannibal turns his head towards Will, but it is so very dark now and he cannot see if Will’s chest is moving anymore or not. He tightens his cold fingers in Will's cold hand. Smiles faintly. “Let us go then, you and I,” he thinks.

Daylight cracks the empty sky and Will struggles to sit up, groaning with pain and pushing against the rumbling round stones beneath him. He feels chilly fingers resting lax in his hand and turns his head to see Hannibal lying beside him, still and blue and smiling. His eyes half-lidded, glassy as taxidermy. A slick red mantle around his shoulders. Will squeezes Hannibal’s unresponsive hand. Hard. Harder.

"Hannibal?"

 

[Loop 1](http://radioxsilence.tumblr.com/post/148575885739/loop-one)

[Loop 2](http://radioxsilence.tumblr.com/post/148575904249/loop-two)

[Loop 3](http://radioxsilence.tumblr.com/post/148575915594/loop-three)

**Author's Note:**

> "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." -Fight Club


End file.
